STONE 

An  Oration  Delivered  Before  The 

Municipal  Authorities  of  the 
City  of  Boston,  at  the  Celebration  of  tl 
Seventy-Eighth  Anniversary  of  American 
Independence,  July  *+«  165*+. 


KEY.  A.  L.  STONE'S  ORATION. 


u; 
-  ORATION 

DELIVERED   BEFOHE    THE 

MUNICIPAL    AUTHORITIES 

OF    THE 

CITY    OF     BOSTON, 

AT    THE 

CELEBRATION 


OF    THE 


JULY  4,  1854. 


BY    REV.  A.  L.   STONE 
\\ 


BOSTON: 

1  854. 

J.  H.  EASTBURN,  CITY  PRINTER. 

I 


CITY    OF    BOSTON. 


IN   COMMON  COUNCIL,  JULY  6,   1854. 

ORDERED.  That  the  thanks  of  the  City  Council  be  presented  to  the  Rev. 
A.  L.  STONE,  for  the  Oration  delivered  by  him  before  the  Municipal  Author- 
ities, on  the  recent  celebration  of  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence, 
and  that  he  be  requested  to  furnish  a  copy  for  publication. 

Sent  up  for  concurrence. 

ALEX.  H.  RICE,  PRESIDENT. 


IN  BOABD  OF  MAYOR  AND  ALDERMEN,  JCLY  7,  1854. 

Passed  in  concurrence. 

J.  V.  C.  SMITH,  MAYOR. 

A  true  copy.    Attest: 

S.  F.  McCLEARY,  JR.,  City  Clerk. 


To  his  Honor  J.  V.  C.  SMITH,  Mayor,  and 
ALEXANDER  H.  RICE,  Esq.,  President  of  Common  Council. 

Enclosed,  I  submit  to  your  disposal  a  copy  of  the  Oration  delivered  at 
the  recent  celebration,  by  the  Municipal  Authorities  of  this  City,  of  the  Anni- 
versary of  the  Nation's  Birth  day. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

With  great  respect, 

Yours,  &c., 

A.  L.  STONE. 


ORATION. 


IT  is  natural  for  a  traveller,  pressing  forward  from 
sun  to  sun  over  hill  and  valley,  to  pause  on  the  heights 
he  climbs,  that  he  may  look  behind  him  over  the 
length  of  way  already  traversed,  and  before  him  along 
the  fresh  reaches  yet  to  be  measured.  It  is  good  for 
the  wayfarer  of  life  to  rest  his  steps  on  the  eminences 
that  mark  the  bounds  of  his  finished  years — to  take 
both  retrospect  and  forecast — to  give  anew  his  mind  to 
thought,  his  heart  to  praise,  and  his  hands  to  duty.  It 
is  equally  natural  and  good  for  a  nation  in  its  swift 
career  to  power  and  greatness,  or  to  whatsoever  des- 
tiny, to  linger  awhile  on  the  summits  of  its  successive 
epochs  of  life — to  learn  wisdom  from  the  past — to 
gather  hope  for  the  future,  and  to  gird  itself  afresh 
for  its  race. 

These  National  Birth-days,  as  their  joyous  chimes 
from  bell-tower  and  cannon-throat  strike  on  our  ears, 
are  fit  occasions — goodly  hill-tops — on  which  to  bring 
within  one  horizon  the  memorials  of  the  times  gone 
by,  and  the  presages  of  those  to  come.  Each  gratulant 


sound  on  this  commemorative  morning  has  its  echo 
from  "  SEVENTY-SIX" — its  reverberations  lose  them- 
selves amid  the  dim  denies  of  ages  yet  to  be.  So  does 
this  day  come  to  us  both  as  a  historian  and  a  prophet. 

We  shall  not  now  linger  long  with  this  past.  Its 
story  is  too  familiar — the  day  itself  utters  it  on  all  our 
hills  and  in  every  valley ;  childhood  knows  it  as  its 
own  household  words.  The  present  is  too  stirring  and 
eventful — the  auguries  of  the  future  too  momentous. 
Enough  of  it  we  must  call  back  to  honor  the  dues  of 
a  just  commemoration;  and  then  yield  us  to  the 
mighty  currents  that  are  bearing  us  and  our  country's 
fortunes  on  their  rushing  tideway  to — unknown  shores. 

And  our  theme  possesses  this  twofold  advantage, 
guiding  us  up  the  stream  in  its  hitherto  flowing,  and 
out  along  its  distant  reaches,  as  we  sketch  with  hur- 
ried hand  THE  STRUGGLES  OF  AMERICAN  HISTORY. 

The  life  of  nations,  as  the  life  of  individual  man, 
has  its  epochs  and  eras.  It  does  not  leap  at  once  to 
its  prime  of  armed  power.  It  has  rather,  like  human- 
ity itself,  its  embryo — its  birth — its  infancy — its  child- 
hood, period  succeeding  to  period  till  it  stands  stalwart 
and  strong  in  robust  manhood.  And  all  past  human 
history  gives  melancholy  completeness  to  the  parallel, 
in  the  decay  of  national  life  as  it  falls  into  the  imbe- 
cilities and  decrepitudes  of  age — then  sinks  into  the 
common  tomb  of  buried  empires. 

Indeed,  it  is  a  universal  law,  that  whatsoever  life 
has  a  beginning,  must  win  its  full  development  by  con- 
flict and  struggle.  And  the  annals  of  every  people 


offer  themselves  in  evidence  and  illustration  of  this 
law  of  growth.  The  Hebrew  nation  had  its  germ  in  the 
heart  of  a  shepherd  dwelling  in  his  tent  on  the  Syrian 
plains.  We  watch  the  germ  in  its  first  transplant- 
ing, by  the  hand  of  Jacob,  as  he  flies  from  the  grave 
of  his  father,  a  fugitive  from  the  vengeance  of  his  elder 
brother.  A  little  later,  twelve  men  enshrine  its  imper- 
illed fortunes,  when  the  fierce  seven  years'  famine 
seems  its  final  doom.  In  short-lived  prosperity  it 
thrives  again  under  the  sunshine  of  Egyptian  favor, 
then  sinks  trampled  into  the  dust  beneath  the  iron 
heel  of  a  cruel  bondage — lifts  its  head  once  more  above 
the  refluent  waves  of  the  avenging  Red  Sea — hides 
from  sight  in  the  solitudes  of  the  wilderness — emerges 
at  last  from  its  forty  years'  wandering  in  the  desert, 
and  conquers  for  itself,  after  a  hundred  wars,  a  broad 
kingdom  and  a  stately  metropolis  in  the  land  of 
promise. 

Young  Rome,  yet  in  its  cradle,  matched  its  infant 
strength  against  the  warlike  herdsmen  that  environed 
its  simple  fortresses — then  met  the  onset  of  remoter 
kings  and  tribes — Sabines  and  Portians — bent  to  the 
earth  and  rose  again  beneath  the  rushing  of  the  Gallic 
tides  pouring  down  from  the  gates  of  the  north — each 
encounter  a  struggle  of  life  and  death — grappled  in 
long  and  doubtful  strife  with  her  great  rival,  Tyrian 
Carthage — challenged  nation  after  nation  to  mortal 
combat,  staking  her  very  existence  on  each  throw  for 
fortune's  favor,  and  so  crowned  herself  at  last  on  her 
seven-pillared  throne — queen  of  the  conquered  world. 


England  had  her  four  centuries  of  fluctuating  war- 
fare with  the  Legionaries  of  Rome — wrestled  with  the 
mighty  hordes  of  the  Caledonian  wilds,  whom  she 
repelled  by  the  help  of  her  Saxon  allies,  received  in 
turn  her  helpers  as  controlling  elements  of  her  na- 
tional life,  fainted  under  the  pressure  of  the  vast  war- 
fleets  of  the  Danes — then  hurled  them  back  from  her 
shores-^as ..  her  white  cliffs,  the  waves  that  ever  return, 
only  to  be  baffled  and  broken — met  and  reeled  before 
the  shock  of  Norman  invasion,  and  again  enriched  her 
veins  with  foreign  blood,  and  so  struggled  onward 
through  revolutions  and  wars,  and  regicides  and  long 
Parliaments — to  the  proudest  throne  among  the  na- 
tions— wearing  now  that  most  royal  name,  "  Sovereign 
of  the  Seas." 

The  same  history  of  successive  struggles — the  same 
eventful  annals  of  disasters  and  then  more  signal  vic- 
tories following  in  rapid  alternation,  has  checked  the 
life-story  of  every  nation  that  has  risen  from  weakness 
to  power  in  all  the  book  of  time,  confessing,  as  we  have 
said,  in  the  uniformity  of  the  event,  the  universal  law 
of  national  growth. 

Our  own  nation  is  no  exception  to  this  law  of  cen- 
turies, though  the  young  stripling  speedily  disencum- 
bered himself  of  the  swaddling  bands  of  his  baby- 
hood— was  early  weaned,  forsaking  mother's  milk  for 
strong  meat — despised  creeping — shook  off  all  equivo- 
cal drapery — put  on  the  distinctive  costume  of  his  sex, 
and  standing  erect  on  his  own  feet,  in  early  and  am- 
bitious youth,  bent  to  the  race,  and  stretched  his  Titan 


limbs  on  the  long  course  of  time,  for  the  foremost  place 
of  earthly  greatness. 

We  hope  not  to  be  vainglorious  in  reciting  any  of 
our  histories,  or  working  out  our  horoscope  for  the 
future.  We  have  had  our  portrait  sketched  so  often 
by  foreign  artists  that  came  over  on  purpose,  that  we 
ought,  by  this  time,  seeing  ourselves  as  others  see  us, 
to  have  learned  humility ;  and  there  will  be  enough  in 
our  field  of  thought  this  day  to  make  us  serious  and  to 
keep  down  pride. 

Somebody  has  called  us — perhaps  we  did  it  our- 
selves, if  so  it  is  a  name  of  our  own  invention  and  we 
have  a  right  to  it,  if  not,  we  have  accepted  it,  and  so  it 
is  ours — the  YOUNG  GIANT  OF  THE  WEST. 

He  has  n't  many  of  the  graces  of  the  exquisite — this 
young  giant — so  the  foreign  artists  have  drawn  him. 
The  shirt-frill  and  the  patent  leather  and  the  patent 
airs  of  the  French  dandy,  he  doesn't  much  affect. 
His  clothes  are  thought  not  to  set  well,  to  be  a  little 
awkwardly  made  and  awkwardly  worn.  But  he  gets 
up  early  in  the  morning  and  dresses  in  haste.  He 
does  n't  spend  much  time  before  the  glass.  He  runs 
his  fingers  through  his  hair  instead  of  a  comb — his 
only  anxiety  being  to  keep  it  out  of  his  eyes — and 
neglects  the  pomatum  entirely.  In  the  portrait  his 
shoes  are  broad  and  thick  soled,  but  he  stands  firm  in 
them,  and  when  he  swings  them  they  have  momentum. 
His  hands  are  large,  but  there 's  a  gripe  in  them.  His 
hat  brim  is  narrow,  but  it  lets  the  light  of  heaven  on 
his  face.  His  shirt  collar  is  high  and  stiff,  but  it  keeps 


10 


him  looking  straight  ahead  after  his  destiny.  His  coat 
is  short-waisted,  he  does  n't  run  to  waste  (waist)  in 
broadcloth.  The  piece  of  apparel  that  clothes  his 
nether  limbs  stops  a  little  too  soon  in  its  downward 
reach,  but  he  is  growing  so  fast. 

In  short  there  may  be  found  many  a  more  polished 
looking  gentleman — fitter  for  ladies'  presence — but 
there  are  apparent  in  him  such  bone  and  muscle — such 
wiry  chords  about  the  loose-strung  joints — such  a  long- 
armed  and  deep-chested  outfit  for  the  wrestling  of 
earth's  potentates,  that  the  sight  of  him  does  n't  much 
encourage  these  jealous  ones  to  try  a  fall.  They  may 
make  game  of  him — and  that's  just  what  they  find 
him — GAME. 

But  he  wasn't  always  a  giant.  He  had  his  own 
cradling.  It  was  a  rude  nursery,  in  which  he  learned 
to  walk — it  was  a  rough  discipline  that  shook  him  free 
from  his  leading  strings. 

Scarce  two  generations  of  men — and  many  an  indi- 
vidual lifetime  still  wearing  greenly  on  in  the  midst  of 
us — span  the  entire  length  of  our  national  existence — 
an  added  century  and  a  half  will  go  back  to  our  fore- 
fathers' first  coming — and  within  these  brief  periods 
the  germ  has  become  the  oak,  the  fresh-born  foster- 
child  of  Liberty  has  become  the  youthful  giant. 

The  first  struggle  of  American  life  was  against  the 
untamed  wildness  of  Nature.  When  the  Hebrew  tribes 
emerged  from  the  wilderness  and  set  foot  in  the  prom- 
ised land,  they  found  it,  in  the  expressive  phrase  of 
scripture,  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey.  The  art 


11 


of  human  tillage,  the  labors  of  human  industry  had  pre- 
ceded them.  It  was  built  up  with  walled  towns  and 
stately  cities.  Its  hills  were  green  with  the  olive — its 
cliffs  purple  with  the  vine.  All  they  had  to  do  was  to 
enter  in  and  take  possession.  But  our  land  of  promise 
was  the  wilderness  still.  As  the  keel  of  the  Atlantic 
voyager  approaches  now  these  shores,  he  gazes  upon 
broad  armed  harbors,  inviting  him  into  their  peaceful 
waters  as  the  weary  sea  bird  to  its  nest,  beacon  towers, 
flaming  red  warning  in  the  darkness  or  ringing  their 
chimes  through  the  fog — great  cities,  pushing  their  ad- 
venturous granite,  munitions  of  wealth  and  trade,  far 
out  against  the  besieging  waves — forest-girded  with  the 
masts  of  a  world-wide  commerce — green  heights  around 
adorned  with  fair  villas, — smiling  valleys  retreating 
back  among  the  hills,  continuous  gardens — sun-lighted 
streams  bearing  down  to  ocean  ports  the  flow  of  inland 
wealth — little  brooks  white  from  the  vexing  water 
wheels — the  smoke  of  tall  chimneys,  beneath  whose 
shadows  toil  the  dusty  artificer — the  lifted  spires  of 
Christian  temples — all  heralding  to  that  voyager  a 
land  of  peace  and  plenty,  and  giving  sign  of  generous 
and  hospitable  welcome.  How  different  this  picture 
from  that  which  frowned  before  the  resolute  eyes  that 
first  measured  the  New  England  coast !  Hills  robed 
in  forest  terrors  sloped  backward  from  the  water's  mar- 
gin— up  the  silent  valleys  there  were  no  tracks  save 
those  of  savage  beasts  or  savage  men — over  what  hid- 
den perils  the  harbor  tides  ebbed  and  flowed  they  had 
yet  to  learn — whither  the  valley  streams  led,  in  their 


12 


upward  course  to  their  fountains,  none  could  tell 
them — the  future  harvest  plains  grew  the  oak  harvests 
of  slow  centuries.  No  houses  were  built  for  them — 
matron  and  maiden,  age  and  infancy,  must  shelter 
themselves  in  tents  or  beneath  evergreen  boughs,  from 
winter's  rigors.  Nature,  in  her  sternest  panoply, 
seemed  thus  to  defy  our  fathers  to  the  struggle. 
Sheathed  in  glittering  snows,  like  a  virgin  warrior  in 
mail,  she  seemed  to  expect  by  her  very  aspect,  to  decide 
the  contest.  She  gathered  up  the  awe  of  her  grand 
mysterious  solitudes,  to  lay  upon  their  spirits.  She 
blew  upon  them  with  the  chill  of  her  December  winds, 
and  sought  to  pierce  the  heart  with  her  spear  of  ice. 

But  they  were  no  faint-hearted  champions  that  had 
come  over  to  measure  their  prowess  with  her  savage 
wildness.  The  land  was  to  be  possessed.  Therefore  it 
was  to  be  explored,  subdued,  and  made  to  pay  tribute. 
Upon  it  were  to  rise  cities  and  villages,  and  roll  the 
yellow  harvest  seas.  They  had  strong  arms  and  stout 
hearts,  and  the  conflict  was  joined.  The  first  strokes 
fell — they  rang  through  the  woodland  depths,  and 
their  echoes  swept  over  the  sullen  waves.  The  fore- 
most forest  ranks  bowed  to  the  invasion.  Again  the 
axe  advanced,  and  again  the  serried  line  of  resistance 
gave  way.  Still  was  the  onset  strengthened  by  new 
forces,  and  still  the  woodland  veterans,  with  all  their 
plumed  honors,  went  down  before  them.  And  so  the 
battle  front  has  rolled  on,  and  so  the  sturdy  giants  of 
the  forest  and  the  wild  have  retreated  before  it.  It  has 
been  a  continuous  conflict,  and  the  end  is  not  yet — but 


13 


victory  has  always  declared  for  the  invader.  The  axe — 
the  fire — the  plough — the  spade — those  weapons  of  as- 
sault, cannot  be  withstood.  The  noise  of  the  sylvan 
war  is  now  quite  remote.  It  has  rolled  backward  on 
the  Alleghanies — it  has  swept  northward  and  eastward 
into  the  fastnesses  of  our  mountain  ranges  and  the  old 
woods  of  Maine — it  has  rushed  across  the  prairies  and 
left  them  broad  oceans  of  rolling  harvest  wealth — 
faint  and  far  we  hear  the  sturdy  strokes,  that  tell  where 
the  van  marches,  coming  back  to  our  ears  from  the  dis- 
tant valley  slopes  that  rise  from  the  Father  of  waters — 
toward  the  heights  that  look  down  upon  Pacific  Seas. 
In  the  track  of  this  bloodless  conquest,  shoots  the  green 
blade  of  the  corn,  lise  the  walls  of  cheerful  and  busy 
hamlets,  growing  soon  to  emulous  cities,  where  wealth 
builds  and  taste  and  refinement  adorn — and  bloom  and 
smile  every  where  the  gardens  of  graceful  and  happy 
homes. 

As  fast  as  new  territories  are  opened  to  these  restless 
pioneer  feet  their  ranks  are  again  in  motion,  and  the 
struggle  again  renewed,  and  fresh  victories  won.  The 
conquering  columns  are  pouring  now  into  those  vast 
regions,  whose  names  are  spoken  sadly  among  us  as 
trophies  of  the  triumphant  encroachments  of  the  Slave 
Despotism  on  our  soil.  But  we  do  not  fear.  These 
axe-armed  cohorts  of  freemen  from  the  East  and  North 
and  West,  carrying  fire  and  smoke  before  them — sym- 
bols not  of  destruction — but  of  civilization — of  the 
hearthstones  of  domestic  life,  and  the  glowing  furnaces 
of  the  arts — forerunners  of  harvests  and  orchards — and 


14 


the  manifold  comforts  of  a  free  and  established  popula- 
tion, are  silently  and  swiftly  taking  possession  of  the 
disputed  realm  in  the  name  of  humanity  and  liberty. 

Such  has  been  and  is  the  first  struggle  of  American 
life  and  history, — the  infant  Hercules  matching  him- 
self in  his  cradle  with  the  earth-born  forces  of  savage 
nature !  It  is  not  yet  consummated — but  the  whole 
prestige  of  the  past  is  with  the  toiling  and  adventurous 
arms  that  are  making  this  once  waste  and  howling 
wilderness  to  blossom  as  the  rose.  We  believe  we  may 
take  this  opening  chapter  as  an  augury  for  all  the  his- 
tory, for  other  struggles  yet  to  be  chronicled,  for  those 
unwritten  leaves  sealed  up  for  us  yet,  against  the  open- 
ing of  which  so  many  begin  to  tremble. 

II.  Beginning  soon  after  this  struggle,  and  keeping 
pace  with  it  for  many  a  tragic  year  of  our  story,  came 
our  struggle  with  savage  men — the  second  struggle  of 
American  history ',  in  which  the  infancy  of  the  young 
giant  may  be  said  to  have  cut  its  teeth.  The  vast 
deserts  of  the  North  American  Continent,  unlike  the 
densely  peopled  shores  of  South  America,  which  the 
Spaniards  deluged  in  blood,  had  really  and  properly  no 
personal  or  national  proprietors.  Over  them  there 
roamed  the  scattered  tribes  of  the  aboriginal  savages, 
whose  only  occupancy  of  the  soil  was  the  privilege  of 
coursing  itsv  forest  ranges,  in  the  hunt  and  on  the  war- 
path, an'd  tilling  their  patches  of  Indian  corn.  They 
were  for  the  most  part  restless  nomads,  building 
and  deserting  again,  as  the  forest  game  abounded  or 


15 


failed  them,  their  temporary  villages  of  huts,  and  leav- 
ing behind  them  for  whatsoever  successor,  the  soil 
they  had  traversed  and  wrought  for  a  season,  but  never 
truly  appropriated.  On  the  Plymouth  coast,  the  hand 
of  Providence  itself  had  prepared  room  for  the  New 
England  Fathers.  A  wasting  mortality,  the  ravages  of 
some  unknown  pestilence,  had  swept  this  rude  but 
sacred  portal  of  the  continent  free  for  the  entrance  of 
the  Pilgrims.  Doubtless  there  have  been  in  the  pro- 
gress and  triumph  of  a  European  civilization  on  this 
continent,  many  acts  of  injustice  and  cruelty  commit- 
ted by  white  men  upon  their  red  brethren  of  the 
forest.  But  our  own  early  history  was  not  so  stained. 
The  memorable  treaty,  formed  by  our  forefathers  with 
the  great  Sachem  of  the  Wampanoags,  the  peace- 
loving  Massasoit,  continued  inviolate  for  fifty  years. 
But  at  last  here  also,  the  jealous  fears  of  the  red  man, 
the  passions  of  ambitious  chiefs,  and,  with  not  a  few 
leading  spirits,  the  instinct  of  self-preservation  kindled 
the  flames  of  a  fierce  and  exterminating  warfare.  Its 
storms  broke  upon  the  infant  settlements  just  strug- 
gling into  life  amid  vicissitudes  of  famine  and  sickness, 
and  thenceforth  it  seemed  that  the  hatchet  was  never 
more  to  be  buried,  save  with  the  arm  that,  wielded  it. 
That  period  has  receded  among  our  antiquities  as  a 
people ;  but  the  scenes  it  recalls  are  the  most  thrill- 
ing and  terrible  in  the  annals  of  nations. 

Here,  too,  a  sovereign  Providence  was  working  to 
insure  to  the  chosen  people,  the  land  kept  in  reserve 
for  their  coming,  through  silent  centuries.  Not  for 


16 


the  barbarian  was  this  noble  continent  heaved  up  from 
the  retiring  waters.  No  race  of  wild  hunters,  with  a 
navy  of  bark  canoes,  were  to  evoke  the  destiny  of  such 
a  magnificent  world.  This  sweep  of  ocean  coast,  deep- 
serrated  with  ports  and  harbors — prophetic  of  a  thou- 
sand keels  of  commerce — these  broad  inland  seas  and 
long  reaches  of  navigable  rivers,  opening  the  whole 
vast  interior  to  the  white-winged  messengers  of  trade — 
the  chambered  mineral  wealth,  pushing  its  dark  gal- 
leries beneath  all  the  hills — that  basin  of  the  central 
valley,  the  most  splendid  theatre  for  the  marvels  of 
human  industry  on  God's  earth — these  were  not,  in 
the  designs  of  Providence,  the  heritage  of  savage 
tribes,  whose  only  quest,  as  they  tracked  this  superb 
domain  with  wood-paths,  was  the  wild  deer  and  the 
thundering  troops  of  the  buffalo.  So  the  victory  was 
given  again  to  the  European,  and  the  red  man  has 
melted  away  before  the  long-rolling  wave  of  civiliza- 
tion. We  hear  still  from  our  far  frontiers,  the  crack 
of  his  rifle  and  the  whoop  of  his  charge,  as  he  rallies 
here  and  there  on  his  sullen  retreat.  But  the  strife  is 
nearly  spent.  Let  us  hope  that  at  least  and  at  last,  a 
peaceful  evening  may  close  the  historic  day  of  a 
doomed  and  dying  race. 

III.  The  third  struggle  of  American  life  was  that 
whose  memories  cluster  thickest  and  greenest  around 
us  this  day.  We  may  call  it  the  effort  of  the  boy- 
giant  to  stand  upon  his  feet,  and  go  alone.  The  bit- 
terness of  this  strife,  was  not  in  the  mating  of  peace- 


17 


ful  settlers,  untaught  in  arms,  against  the  trained 
armies  of  European  battle-fields,  not  the  poverty  of 
the  colonists  in  the  resources  and  munitions  of  war  as 
measured  with  the  first  power  of  the  civilized  world ; 
not  that  wretched  destitution  under  which  our  heroic 
armies  trailed  their  bare-footed  and  bleeding  marches 
across  wintry  snows,  and  over  flinty  roads — not  the 
slaughter  that  crimsoned  yonder  height,  whose  gray 
shaft  catches  and  keeps  the  first  and  last  beams  of 
coming  and  parting  day — nor  the  arming  of  neighbor 
against  neighbor,  blending  the  horrors  of  foreign  and 
civil  war — nor  the  waste  of  noble  life  in  all  the  length 
of  the  conflict.  It  was  rather  in  the  distressful  and 
outraged  sentiments  of  the  heart.  It  was  in  the  sad 
necessities  that  arrayed  the  Spirit  of  Liberty  against 
the  Spirit  of  Loyalty — that  forced  our  fathers,  in  vio- 
lence to  all  their  filial  love  and  reverence  for  the 
mother-land — into  so  unnatural  a  strife.  In  those 
days  there  was  no  other  word  for  home,  but  England. 
Stronger  than  the  recollection  of  all  early  wrongs,  of 
spiritual  oppression  and  persecution,  was  this  sacred 
tie  that  bound  them  to  the  place  of  their  birth. 
England's  pleasant  soil,  England's  renown,  England's 
history  were  theirs.  There  rested  their  ancestral 
dust.  There  dwelt  still,  kinsman  and  friend.  This 
was  the  deepest  pain — the  sorest  travail  of  all  the  con- 
test, to  arm  the  hand  against  the  tender  loyalty  of  the 
heart.  There  was  no  instinct  of  treason  with  those 
defenders  of  sacred  rights.  They  were  no  rebels  to 
just  authority,  usurping  crowns,  and  clutching  sceptres 


18 


in  the  lust  of  power.  They  were  earnest  freemen 
seeking  at  first,  and  for  long,  redress,  not  revolution. 
And  when  the  conviction  gathered  upon  them,  that 
there  was  no  peace  or  security  for  them  or  the  hallow- 
ed prerogatives  they  stood  for,  but  in  Independence— 
their  first,  saddest  and  yet  noblest  victory  was  over 
themselves.  And  keeping  down  their  own  insurgent 
hearts  with  the  iron  nerve  of  their  great  purpose,  as 
great  in  this  inward  struggle  as  in  its  prophetic  out- 
look over  the  future,  they  lifted  the  flag  of  their 
solemn  and  daring  venture,  and  bore  it  on  to  triumph. 
And  as  we  sit  beneath  its  folds  this  day,  the  thunders 
of  a  jubilant  nation  rocking  the  continent  around  us, 
we  have  to  remember  not  more  the  dauntless  valor  of 
our  sires  of  the  Revolution,  than  that  suffering  self- 
conquest,  after  which  no  other  field  was  terrible,  no 
other  victory  memorable.  But  we  must  not  linger 
even  here.  This  struggle  and  its  issue  only  prepared 
the  way  for  the  next. 

IV.  The  struggle  of  diverse  and  clashing  elements 
to  frame  themselves  into  forms  of  Civil  Government. 
Our  giant — now  a  stripling  in  the  impetuous  days  of 
youth,  wrestling  with  his  own  temper  and  passions  for 
the  sceptre  of  self-control.  This  is  a  history  less  often 
recited.  Its  manifold  and  imminent  hazards  are  not 
popularly  known,  or  if  known,  not  remembered.  Each 
school-boy  can  tell  us  of  Lexington  and  Concord,  of 
Trenton  and  Monmouth,  of  Princeton  and  Guilford, 
and  Yorktown ;  but  the  fields  where  mind  struggled 


19 


with  mind — the  scenes  in  which  the  builders  wrought 
together  to  lift  the  stately  structure  of  our  free  Insti- 
tutions, toiling  like  the  Jews  in  the  time  of  Nehemiah, 
when  "  every  one  with  one  of  his  hands  wrought  in  the 
work,  and  with  the  other  held  a  weapon  " — these  are 
settling  into  oblivion.  The  names  of  those  that  drew 
the  sword  and  shouted  battle  cries,  are  handed  down  in 
song  and  story ;  and  they  who  wielded  the  pen  and 
lifted  the  voice  of  patriot  oratory  in  that  later  and 
more  masterful  strife,  are  left  almost  unlaurelled.  But 
it  is  scarcely  possible  for  us  in  this  crowded  hour,  and 
under  the  pressure  of  what  remains  to  be  said  of  a 
more  present  interest,  to  give  even  a  single  page  from 
those  stirring  records. 

The  generation  that  stood  together  on  these  shores 
in  the  solemn  pause  that  succeeded  the  revolutionary 
struggle,  and  looking  one  another  in  the  face,  asked 
how  shall  we  be  governed,  or  rather  how  shall  we 
govern  ourselves,  were  of  varied  and  heterogenous 
elements.  They  had  come  from  the  fixed  and  formal 
methods  of  social  and  political  life  in  the  Old  World — 
each  with  a  physiognomy  of  his  own,  sharply  cut. 
They  had  come  each  with  his  own  purpose  and  aim. 
Some  of  them  had  been  restless  and  discontented 
spirits  at  home,  and  nocked  hither  from  love  of  change 
or  ambition  of  fresh  intrigues.  Some  were  seekers  for 
mines  of  gold.  Some  were  possessed  of  lofty  concep- 
tions of  a  new  and  fairer  order  of  social  institutions, 
than  any  the  world  had  seen ;  and  hoped  to  realize  in 
the  free  distant  wilderness,  their  pure  ideals.  And 


20 


others,  again,  brought  only  the  sturdy  outfit  of  the 
peasant-laborer,  and  a  scheme  of  life  whose  widest 
horizon  was  limited  to  the  improvement  of  their 
physical  comforts.  There  were  men  of  Patrician 
rank,  also,  who  were  deep-dyed  in  aristocratic  predi- 
lections, and  hoped  to  mark  out  of  the  unclaimed 
riches  of  the  new  continent,  more  magnificent  manors 
than  had  ever  graced  the  family  name.  All  these — by 
their  common  experience  of  dangers,  their  united 
efforts  for  deliverance,  and  the  common  necessities  of 
the  new,  fresh  life  that  had  the  same  law  of  personal 
effort  for  all — brought  into  a  condition  of  social  equal- 
ity, were  to  be  consolidated  into  a  government  whose 
equal  pressure  should  rest  on  all  alike — whose  benefi- 
cent care  conserve  without  partiality  the  interests  of 
all.  The  earliest  confederacy,  created  by  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  war,  and  equal  to  those  exigencies  alone, 
calmly  surveying  itself  when  the  war  was  ended, 
clearly  perceiving  its  inadequacy  to  the  new  career  on 
which  the  nation  was  launched,  and  ingenuous  in  its 
confession,  nobly  and  wisely  threw  back  the  reins 
upon  the  neck  of  the  people.  The  process  of  re- 
constructing a  Federal  Government  on  a  basis  that 
should  be  permanent,  was  most  difficult  and  delicate. 
Fortunately  it  was  committed  to  the  hands  of  men  as 
able,  faithful  and  pure  as  any  in  our  history.  James 
Madison  had  a  seat  in  that  Convention;  Alexander 
Hamilton  was  there, — and  with  them,  the  highest  and 
most  beloved  name  in  the  land — Washington.  With 
such  master  builders,  the  majestic  fabric  of  the  Con- 


21 


stitution  rose.  It  was  founded  on  the  principle  of  the 
sovereignty  of  the  people — a  principle  not  held  ab- 
stractly and  sentimentally,  but  boldly  applied  to  all 
departments  of  State — all  the  functions  of  Govern- 
ment. Its  grand  and  nearest  corollary,  the  interven- 
tion of  the  people  in  public  affairs,  the  Constitution 
recognized  and  established  as  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land.  So  was  there  constructed  a  central  and  confed- 
erate Government,  whose  administration,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  general  and  universal.  Of  course  there 
must  needs  be  in  any  such  centralization,  a  seeming 
infringement  upon  the  Independence  of  the  States — a 
seeming  curtailment  of  popular  rights — an  apparent 
tendency  to  aristocratic,  in  distinction  from  democratic 
forms  of  national  life.  It  was  impossible,  but  that  there 
should  thus  be  excited  jealousy  of  the  federal  power. 
In  a  country  where  every  man  boasted  himself  his  own 
master,  every  village  enacted  its  own  local  ordinances, 
each  several  State  clung  to  its  own  absolute  sove- 
reignty in  all  its  internal  affairs,  it  was  not  without  an 
effort  that  the  popular  mind  could  be  brought  to 
acknowledge  a  distant  centralized  supremacy,  though 
the  creature  of  itself.  There  was  a  necessity  of  Union, 
but  a  dread  of  it;  a  suspension  of  it,  a  war  of  popular 
feeling  against  it.  There  were  boding  prophecies  as  to 
the  ultimate  limits  of  this  delegated  authority,  whereto 
it  might  grow ;  what  colossal  shadows  it  might  fling 
over  the  land.  Intriguing  politicians  were  not  want- 
ing to  those  days,  who  were  ready  for  the  price  of  per- 
sonal aggrandizement,  to  inflame  the  popular  discon- 


22 


tent,  and  to  stigmatise  every  Federalist  as  an  enemy  to 
the  liberties  of  the  people.  The  strongest  powers,  the 
most  prodigious  efforts,  the  purest  patriotism  of  the 
great  leaders  of  the  national  fortunes  were  demanded, 
to  root  the  new  government  in  the  affections  and  con- 
fidence of  the  people.  Happily  these  influences,  allied 
to  the  personal  popularity  of  the  idolized  and  immortal 
Father  of  his  Country,  were  potent  enough  to  meet 
the  crisis  and  control  the  issue ;  and  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment became  a  fact  and  a  life.  The  struggle  passed 
by,  the  storm  disappeared  from  the  sky,  and  though  its 
low  mutterings  were  still  heard  for  a  time,  the  serenity 
of  the  Heavens  was  not  again  seriously  disturbed. 
For  nearly  seventy  years  that  contest  has  been  over. 
No  government  on  earth  is  more  stable.  "  Treason  is 
a  forgotten  crime."  The  fountains  of  popular  content- 
ment have  never  been  broken  up.  The  yoke  sits  easy 
on  every  neck.  Neither  individuals  nor  classes  have 
chafed  beneath  its  pressure.  Peace  "  with  her  olives 
crowned,"  sits  smiling  on  all  our  hills.  Around  the 
National  Capitol  there  watch  no  guards,  save  the  warm 
encircling  hearts  of  our  free  and  happy  millions.  For 
all  purposes  of  national  action,  the  American  people  is 
a  consolidated  unit,  respected  and  honored  among  the 
powers  of  earth.  In  all  matters  of  private  and  social 
concern,  the  will  of  the  people  is  its  own  immediate 
and  almost  unrestricted  law. 

V.     But  there  is  yet  another  struggle  upon  us  all 
whose  history  is  sadder,  all  whose  portents  are  darker, 


and  out  of  which  there  has  dawned  hitherto  no  day  of 
deliverance.  We  are  indeed  now  in  the  very  throe 
and  travail  of  it.  It  is  the  gangrene  on  the  limbs  of 
the  giant,  climbing  with  dark  mortal  omens  toward 
the  seat  of  life.  It  has  trailed  its  humbling  and  tragic 
story,  its  pathway  of  shame,  through  all  these  years  of 
our  growing  greatness.  It  has  dimmed  before  the 
gaze  of  mankind  our  star  of  liberty  and  promise.  It 
has  sullied  all  our  just  renown.  It  has  crippled  our 
Christianity — it  has  intensely  tried  our  patriotism — it 
has  denied  the  principles  for  which  we  have  done  and 
suffered  most.  At  times  it  has  seemed  to  expire,  and 
men  would  gather  jubilant  and  gratulant  to  inurn  its 
ashes.  And  then  some  breath  of  the  never  quiet 
atmosphere  of  controversy  would  blow  its  embers  again 
to  fiercer  flames.  It  has  had  its  campaigns,  and  then 
its  hollow  truces,  broken  by  the  shocks  of  deadlier 
conflict. 

The  struggle  antedates  the  day  we  are  celebrating. 
Its  earliest  scenes  are  back  in  the  old  colonial  times. 
Our  fathers,  then  acting  in  concert,  afflicted  with  a 
common  conscience  of  the  evil,  plead  against  it  with 
the  distant  royalty  to  which  they  held  allegiance.  They 
declared  in  that  memorable  address  to  their  king,  that 
in  their  conviction  it  was  impossible  "  for  men," — these 
are  their  words — "  impossible  for  men  who  exercise 
their  reason,  to  believe  that  the  divine  author  of  our 
existence  intended  a  part  of  the  human  race  to  hold 
an  absolute  property  in  others."  And  in  a  mournful 
and  touching  sentence  they  add—"  We  cannot  endure 


the  infamy  and  guilt  of  resigning  succeeding  genera- 
tions to  the  wretchedness  that  inevitably  awaits  them, 
if  we  entail  hereditary  bondage  upon  them." 

But  their  plea  for  royal  interposition  was  haughtily 
and  even  arrogantly  rejected.  And  the  malign  insti- 
tution thus  fostered  by  English  protection,  gathered  to 
itself  fresh  vitality. 

The  next  crisis  of  the  struggle  was  on  the  floor  of 
the  old  National  Congress — at  the  very  threshold  of 
our  national  existence,  in  the  memorable  year  of  1787. 
The  original  Atlantic  States,  bounded  eastwardly  by 
the  Ocean  shore,  and  on  the  north  and  south  by  fixed 
and  declared  lines  of  latitude,  extended  westwardly 
through  the  vast  hidden  interior  to  the  banks  of  the 
Mississippi.  The  great  and  powerful  State  of  Virginia 
setting  the  example  and  taking  the  lead,  and  the 
other  States  whose  proprietorship  ran  parallel  with  its 
own,  through  the  breadth  of  the  western  wilderness, 
following  its  pattern  of  munificence,  the  whole  un- 
measured and  unknown  Northwest,  beyond  the  waters 
of  the  Ohio,  was  ceded  to  the  United  States  represent- 
ed by  the  Continental  Congress.  That  Congress 
accepted  the  perilous  trust.  Here  was  territory — to 
be  governed — to  be  legislated  for — out  of  which  by- 
and-by,  new  States  with  institutions,  manners  and 
laws  of  their  own,  were  to  come  knocking  at  the  door 
of  the  Union.  Two  kinds  of  labor  were  in  vogue, 
and  in  rivalry,  throughout  the  existing  confederacy — 
free  labor  and  slave  labor.  Which  should  succeed  to 
this  magnificent  heritage  ]  And  the  conflict  was 


25 


joined ;    for  three  years  it  rocked   the   floor   of  that 
Congress,  and  shook  the  ill  compacted  elements  of  the 
confederacy   almost   to    dissolution.      It    was    raging 
fiercely  when  the  Convention  sat  to  frame  the  Federal 
Constitution.      Suddenly  there  was  a  hush.     Out   of 
the  storm  was  born  a  calm.     The  great  Pacificator, 
that  which  said  to  the  tempest,  "  Peace  be  still" — was 
the   famed   "  Ordinance  of  '87."     By  this,   the   whole 
disputed  territory  was  forever  consecrated  to  freedom. 
The  price  of  this  victory  for  humanity  and  right,  was 
the   obligation   imposed   upon   the   new    States,    that 
should  some  day  arise  out  of  that  territory,  to  permit 
the  reclamation  of  fugitives  from  bondage.     But  how 
confidently  it  was  hoped,  that  when  that  day  should 
arrive,  not  a  slave  should  walk  our  soil,  either  in  labor 
or  in  flight,  and   how  entirely  this   expectation   was 
acquiesced  in  by  the  most  strenuous  supporters  of  the 
institution,  all  the  voices  of  that  time  unite  to  witness. 
So  that  when  the  Convention  whose  wheels  of  progress 
had  been  blocked  by' the  same  barrier  against  which 
the  Congress  had  halted,  and  availing  itself  of  the 
same  method  of  union  and  harmony,  incorporated  in 
the   rising   Constitution    the   same   formal,  but   as   it 
seemed  almost  idle,  concession,  and  added  to  that  in 
marked  inconsistency  with  the  idea  and  legal  definition 
of  slavery,  a  basis  of  representation  for  persons  held 
in  bondage — it  would  not  consent  that  that  immortal 
instrument  should  be  defiled  by  the  name  of  slave,  or 
by  any  language  that  should  describe  and  define   a 
system  of  human  qhattelization.     That  august,  funda- 


mental  law  was  framed  (we  claim  it  before  Heaven) 
for  a  race  of  freemen — to  be  the  palladium  of  free 
institutions ;  and  not  to  carry  into  the  histories  of  free 
times,  any  memorial  or  relic  of  the  age  of  barbarism. 
To  make  sure  of  this  near  and  happy  future — to  set 
up  a  visible  bound  beyond  which  slavery  should  not 
pass — it  was  farther  ordained  that  at  the  end  of 
twenty  years,  Congress  might  prohibit  the  importation 
of  slaves.  Thus  was  the  case  of  slavery,  by  a  process 
of  legislation  that  carried  the  consent  of  all  minds, 
made  hopeless.  It  was  forever  shut  out  of  all  the  ter- 
ritory over  which  floated  the  national  flag.  It  was 
taxed  by  Congress  to  bear  the  common  burdens  of  the 
Government.  It  was  dishonored  by  the  Constitution 
that  refused  in  the  pride  of  its  purity,  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  its  own  enduring  career,  to  pollute  its 
lips  by  one  syllable  that  should  recognise  its  existence, 
and  perpetuate  its  memory.  The  precedent  was  estab- 
lished, that  no  national  sanction  should  ever  accredit 
its  claims  to  sufferance  and  succor.  There  was 
nowhere  within  the  limits  of  the  confederacy,  an  inch 
of  new  soil  conceded  to  it,  for  growth  and  expansion. 
Just  before  it  was  a  fixed  and  absolute  line  of  time, 
which  no  subsidies  for  its  failing  strength  could  cross. 
It  was  hemmed  around  with  this  inexorable  cordon  of 
law,  and  shut  up  within  its  own  domain  to  suffocate  and 
die.  The  friends  of  humanity  rejoiced — those  involved 
in  the  system  were  not  dissatisfied ;  the  patriot  was 
full  of  courage  and  hope,  and  all  looked  on  together 
to  see  in  its  time  the  coming  and  passing  of  the  mortal 


27 


pang.  So  lingered  and  waited  the  issue.  But  other 
elements  were  to  enter  into  the  strife,  and  shape  its 
coming  developments. 

Early  in  the  present  century,  the  immense  tract  of 
country  lying  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  extending  to 
the  British  possessions  on  the  north,  and  westward 
without  limit,  known  by  its  French  designation  of 
Louisiana,  was  ceded  by  France  to  the  United  States, 
for  the  sum  of  fifteen  millions  of  dollars.  In  some 
parts  of  this  territory,  slavery  speedily  gained  a  foot- 
hold, under  the  provisions  of  our  treaty  with  France. 
The  State  of  Louisiana  was  admitted  into  the  Union  in 
1812,  without  any  restriction  as  to  slavery,  the  system 
having  already  taken  possession  of  her  soil,  and  shaped 
the  forms  of  her  social  life.  Six  years  later,  Missouri 
sought  to  join  herself  to  the  sisterhood  of  sovereign 
States.  "Yes,"  said  the  representatives  of  freedom, 
"  if  you  will  come  in  undefiled  by  that  foul  stain  of 
bondage."  "  She  shall  come  in  without  that  restriction," 
said  the  representatives  of  slavedom.  And  again,  and 
with  all  the  old  fierceness,  the  battle  raged.  For  two 
years  the  smoke  of  the  conflict  hung  over  the  land, 
and  all  hearts  beat  tumultuously  with  its  hopes  and  its 
fears.  At  last  the  battle-clouds  lifted,  and  the  world 
looked  to  see  on  which  standard  victory  had  perched. 
The  two  hosts  were  beheld  mingling  together  in 
friendly  interchanges  around  a  double-faced  monument, 
on  the  one  side  or  the  other  of  which  each  read  the  in- 
scription of  its  own  victory.  Missouri  was  admitted 
with  its  slaves.  But  the  entire  remainder  of  the 


28 


debateable  land  lying  north  of  a  certain  parallel  of 
latitude,  with  all  its  wealth  of  future  States,  was  again 
by  solemn  treaty  and  compact  forever  set  apart  and 
dedicated  to  freedom.  The  temple  of  Janus  was  closed 
again.  The  sea  went  down.  Agitation  was  laid  to 
rest.  The  country  had  not  yet  given  its  full  sanction 
to  slavery.  It  tolerated  it  where  it  had  made  itself  at 
home.  It  recognized  the  rights  of  slave  property, 
where  such  rights,  under  local  laws  or  usages,  had 
already  accrued  ;  but  it  still  dishonored  the  system  by 
its  interdicts.  It  forbade  it  to  set  its  blighting  hoof 
where  yet  it  had  not  trodden.  It  held  before  the 
Commonwealths,  then  scarce  in  embryo,  that  were  yet 
to  be  in  those  broad  ranges  it  guarded,  the  segis  of 
the  national  protection,  and  so  proclaimed  slavery  a 
foe  to  human  progress,  and  to  the  strength  and  wealth 
of  States.  But  for  that  sacred  covenant,  Missouri  could 
never  have  entered  beneath  the  portal  of  the  Union. 
But  for  the  toleration,  not  sanction,  accorded  to  her 
local  institutions,  both  she  and  her  sponsors  would 
perhaps  have  withdrawn  by  open  and  positive  rupture 
from  the  nationality  of  the  States.  We  may  wish  our 
fathers  had  met  the  naked  issue  there.  We  may  think 
the  sacrifice  they  yielded  for  the  sake  of  family  peace, 
to  avert  the  horrors  of  threatened  civil  strife — too 
great  and  precious  a  sacrifice,  for  either  the  prize  or 
the  peril.  But  in  their  view,  though  the  act  was  a 
treason  against  the  holiest  principles  of  our  free  insti- 
tutions, and  the  noblest  struggles  of  our  history, 
though  it  was  a  step  backward  against  the  hope,  and 


faith,  and  purpose  of  the  forefathers,  there  was  still  in 
it  a  sort  of  consistency  that  to  them  made  out  its  de- 
fence. The  basis  on  which  the  States  were  confed- 
erated, was  that  local  institutions  should  remain,  that 
the  Federal  Government,  in  its  legislation  and  in  its 
administration,  should  not  interfere  with  the  internal 
affairs  of  the  States,  in  aught  beyond  what  its  own 
general  purposes  made  imperative.  The  new  applicant 
for  the  federal  alliance  was  already  under  the  local  law 
of  slavery,  and  our  fathers,  feeling  themselves  to  be 
without  power  or  authority  to  remove  the  evil  where  it 
already  existed,  without  their  responsibility,  gave  hesi- 
tating and  reluctant  consent  to  this  new  comer,  with 
the  plague  in  her  bosom,  to  enter  the  privileged  house- 
hold of  the  Union ;  at  the  same  time  relieving  and 
comforting  their  hearts,  by  asserting  in  a  most  solemn 
ordinance  for  all  the  rest  of  that  broad  territory, 
thenceforth  and  forever,  an  inviolable  law  of  freedom. 
This  is  that  sacred  parchment,  laid  up  in  the  national 
archives,  and  venerable  beyond  the  tabernacle  relics  to 
the  old  Hebrew,  upon  which  the  slave  power  has  just 
now  laid  its  sacreligious  hand,  ruthlessly  torn  it  asun- 
der, and  scattered  its  fragments  to  the  four  winds. 
But  ere  this  last  historic  issue,  so  foully  lost  to  liberty 
was  joined,  there  was  yet  another  intervening,  that 
helped  to  swell  and  accelerate  the  fatal  drift  of  the  na- 
tional life  toward  the  degeneracy  of  the  times  upon 
which  we  are  fallen.  Upon  this  scene  of  the  long 
continued  and  ever  renewed  struggle,  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  dwell.  The  confused  and  strange  elements  of 


30 


that  series  of  acts,  bearing  date  at  the  high  noon  of 
this  latest  century  of  light  and  progress,  and  marking, 
we  may  justly  fear,  the  hour  when  the  sun  of  our  na- 
tional glory  passed  its  meridian — contended  for  by  a 
statesmanship  and  oratory  peerless  in  our  annals,  and 
which  had  been,  up  to  that  sad  crisis,  the  clearest 
utterance  of  our  northern  spirit  and  life,  were  bundled 
and  bound  together,  and  labelled,  by  eminence,  "  THE 
COMPROMISE  MEASURES — THE  FINALITY  OF  THE  SLA- 
VERY AGITATION."  They  gave  us  one  free  State,  on  the 
golden  shore  of  the  Pacific  ;  they  outlawed  the  slave 
mart  from  beneath  the  shadow  of  the  capitol ;  but 
they  opened  two  extensive  territories  to  the  blighting 
foot  of  the  great  curse  to  tread  at  will.  They  breathed 
the  breath  of  life  into  the  drowsy,  effete  old  ordinance 
of  the  reclamation  of  fugitives — declared  in  new  and 
most  offensive  terms,  our  northern  homes,  henceforth 
a  hunting  ground  for  flying  bondsmen,  over  which 
whether  the  scent  lay  fresh  or  cold,  the  blood  hounds 
might  course  their  prey — trampled  on  the  inalienable 
right  of  trial  by  jury — offered  a  bounty  for  each  fet- 
tered and  doomed  victim,  and  cast  more  galling  shac- 
kles upon  all  our  instincts  of  humanity. 

And  this  was  to  be  the  end  of  strife.  This  was  the 
grave  of  dissension.  This  finality  was  to  beat  our 
swords  into  ploughshares,  our  spears  into  pruning 
hooks — and  furl  all  banners  of  battle.  Henceforth 
we  were  to  dwell  together  as  brothers,  under  the 
spreading  olive  of  peace. 

And  then  like  a  thunderbolt  from  a  clear  sky  was 


31 


launched  this  double-dyed  perfidy  of  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  The  encircling  and  protecting 
league  that  guarded  that  vast  central  West,  sloping  up 
toward  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  shrivelled 
beneath  that  falling  bolt.  The  sacred  barrier  all  hands 
had  joined  to  raise,  before  which  all  voices  had  united 
to  say  to  the  dark,  on-coming  tide  of  slavery, — "  Thus 
far,  but  no  farther ;  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be 
stayed" — went  down  at  the  springing  of  that  sudden 
mine.  And  forward  again  the  long-baffled  surges 
leapt  with  flashing  feet.  And  there  was  no  sharp  and 
narrow  crisis  upon  us — no  abyss  of  national  ruin, 
yawning  before  us,  from  which  this  dreadful  alterna- 
tive was  the  only  deliverance.  In  the  very  wantonness 
and  bravado  of  reckless,  faithless  power,  this  new  en- 
croachment of  slavery  shook  its  insults  in  the  calm 
face  of  the  North. 

Here  then  at  last  is  the  beginning  of  the  end — here 
the  elements  of  the  protracted  strife,  so  long  fettered 
in  embarrassing  combinations,  tied  up  in  complicated 
alliances — yoked  and  bound  in  covenants  and  pledges, 
separate  themselves  and  stand  fronting  one  another  for 
the  death-grapple.  Let  the  grapple  come.  We  bare 
our  breasts  for  it.  The  issue  is  clear  at  length.  It  is 
not  federal  against  State  rights  now ;  it  is  not  higher 
law  against  lower ;  it  is  not  principle  against  compro- 
mise ; — it  is  liberty  versus  slavery.  Slavery  has  drawn 
the  sword  and  cast  away  the  scabbard.  Slavery,  for- 
saking all  her  shifts  and  policies,  proclaims  war  to  the 
hilt.  She  asks  no  longer  partitions  and  divisions. 


She  reaches  forth  for  the  whole.  She  says  there  shall 
be  no  interdict  out  against  her.  She  will  be  free  to  go 
where  she  will  with  her  own  the  Union  over.  It  shall 
be  no  longer,  "  Freedom  national  and  Slavery  sec- 
tional ;"  nor  yet  Freedom  sectional  and  Slavery  sec- 
tional ;  nor  yet  again,  Freedom  sectional  and  Slavery 
national,  but  Slavery  universal.  Any  man  who  can- 
not see  that  this  is  the  aim,  I  do  not  say  of  the  South, 
but  of  the  men  who  have  assumed  the  leading  of  her 
destinies,  is  blind  to  the  plainest  signs  of  the  times. 

The  "  calm  face  of  the  North "  has  been  quite 
patient  under  the  controversy — it  may  have  worn  an 
aspect  of  too  much  forbearance ;  it  has  sometimes 
gathered  to  frowns  and  spoken  stern  words,  but  the 
look  of  calmness — the  words  of  peace  have  been  its 
prevailing  aspect  and  dialect.  That  aspect  changes 
now.  The  calmness  is  there,  but  very  resolute.  The 
eye  is  kindling  with  final  purpose.  The  lips  are  com- 
pressed with  iron  will.  The  determinate  battle  is 
offered  us;  we  are  ready — readier  now  than  a  few 
weeks  ago. 

There  was  a  little  local  experiment  tried  on  us  of 
the  old  Bay  State — a  sort  of  appendix  to  the  Nebraska 
Kansas  Bill,  to  test  the  mercury  hereabout.  A  fellow 
man,  once  a  chattel,  but  by  the  law  of  nature  and  the 
law  of  God  free,  and  dwelling  among  us  here  in  his 
freedom, — by  the  help  of  a  trick  and  a  lie  was  seized, 
in  our  own  streets,  guarded  within  chains  and  granite 
walls  and  armed  men — tried  under  the  special  forms  of 
law  for  such  case  made  and  provided — adjudged  to 


33 


bondage,  delivered  up,  carried  off.  It  was  a  sad  exper- 
iment and  something  perilous — not  encouraging  to 
another  like  it.  Our  pulses  were  not  quiet  in  those 
days.  They  beat  high  and  strong — with  some  rash 
spirits  they  were  quite  uncontrollable.  It  was  not  a 
pleasant  sight  to  look  upon  our  own  court  of  justice 
converted  into  a  slave  prison,  fenced  off  from  our 
approaches  by  linked  steel — and  garrisoned  as  by  alien 
and  hostile  troops.  It  was  not  pleasant  for  our  peace- 
able and  law-abiding  citizens — bankers,  merchants, 
artizans,  operatives,  to  find  their  own  places  of  business 
barricaded  against  them — to  be  crowded  and  shoulder- 
ed, and  trodden  on  by  our  own  citizen  soldiery,  and 
the  hirelings  of  a  remote  despotism  enforcing  its  cruel 
edicts  at  our  doors.  It  was  not  pleasant  to  know  that 
any  increased  commotion  however  stirred,  might  bring 
the  hail  of  iron  bullets  rattling  against  our  windows, 
and  the  charge  of  horsemen  trampling  down  our  kins- 
men and  neighbors.  Least  of  all  was  it  pleasant  to 
reflect  that  all  this  was  to  be  endured,  as  a  taunt  from 
slavery — a  tribute  to  its  strengthened  sceptre — the  cost 
of  smiting  with  rude  hands,  here  where  her  cradle 
was,  the  matron  form,  of  liberty. 

By  a  singular  Providence,  it  fell  on  the  week  when 
Christian  Churches  and  Christian  ministers  were  gath- 
ered here  to  celebrate  the  triumphs  of  our  gospel  of 
peace  and  good  will  at  home  and  abroad,  that  this  re- 
pulsive and  audacious  exhibition  of  injustice  and  inhu- 
manity confronted  their  jubilee  of  light  and  love  ;  and 
the  strong-chorded  beat  of  the  heart  of  this  metropolis 


34 


was  thus  sent  out  in  living  arteries  through  the  New 
England  Christendom. 

Once  more  then  the  federal  law,  in  its  current  inter- 
pretation— the  law  that  conserves  slavery — that  gives 
back  to  its  irresponsible  will  every  adventurous  fugi- 
tive dragging  its  broken  links  northward,  has  tri- 
umphed. Anthony  Burns  is  a  man.  no  more,  but  a 
chattel  again.  But  it  may  be  found  that  that  triumph 
was  too  dearly  purchased — that  that  stretch  of  our 
endurance  unto  agony,  is  the  last  stage  where  endur- 
ance has  its  final  limit — that  this  perilous  play  upon 
our  tortured  sensibilities,  this  detennined  crushing  of 
our  deepest  and  holiest  convictions,  may  be  tried  once 
too  often.  It  may  be  found  that  this  struggle  of  our 
whole  national  lifetime  has  worn  on  to  its  ultimate 
phase — that  these  recent  events,  illustrating  the  ten- 
dencies of  years,  and  fulfilling  the  prophecies  of  all 
prescient  minds,  have  made  the  issue  now  close  and 
inevitable. 

I  think  we  are  ready,  with  great  solemnity,  each  to 
take  upon  his  lips  words  out  of  the  Sacred  Book. 
"  My  heart  is  fixed ;  Oh  God,  my  heart  is  fixed." 

The  day  of  compromises  is  past.  That  broken  pub- 
lic faith  has  shattered  all  compromises.  Men  will 
trust  in  them,  consent  to  them  no  more.  And  this, 
not  we  fear  because  of  an  increasing  tenderness  in  the 
public  conscience,  but  because  considered  as  pledges 
binding  to  its  contracts  the  perfidious  slave  power,  they 
are  seen  to  be  powerless  as  ropes  of  sand.  And  the 
men  who  have  strained  their  conscience  to  the  very 


35 


utmost  tension,  and  silenced  all  the  protests  of  their 
nature,  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  in  loyalty  to  the 
Union — are  those  whose  wounds  are  deepest.  They 
have  gone  farthest  in  concessions  to  the  South — in  the 
spirit  of  forbearance  and  the  hope  of  harmony,  and 
this  is  their  reward.  Like  the  Alpine  eagle  slain  by  an 
arrow  feathered  from  its  own  pinion,  they  have  been 
pierced  through  their  own  generous  but  mistaken  pol- 
icy. There  will  be  no  more  compromises  ! 

There  will  be  henceforth  a  united  front  for  Liberty. 
We  of  the  North  are  supplied  by  this  latest  outrage 
with  that  which  has  been  so  long  the  chief  element  of 
strength  with  the  South.  A  pole  star  of  hope  and 
eifort,  a  one  idea  that  shall  chrystalize  about  it  as  a 
central  law  all  political  movement  and  action. 

There  will  be,  let  us  hope,  a  disruption  of  all  old 
party  ties.  The  gathering  cries  of  old  political  strifes — 
the  battle  shout  of  clansmen  following  some  idolized 
leader — let  them  die  out.  Let  the  very  name  of  party 
be  sunk  in  this  sacred  league  of  freemen.  Partisan 
issues  may  well  wait  awhile  till  this  grander,  more 
vital  problem  of  our  public  life  has  found  its  solution. 

This  new  array  will  not  necessarily  be  sectional. 
We  will  not  have  the  banners  read,  "  The  North 
against  the  South"  Good  men  and  true  from  every 
portion  of  our  land,  will  be  found  banded  together  in 
this  holy  warfare.  The  device  on  this  new  oriflame 
shall  be  our  own  soaring  eagle  bearing  in  his  talons 
broken  fetters,  and  the  inscription,  "  Freedom  against 
Despotism" 


36 


It  is  a  memorable  thing  that  this  new  step  of  pro- 
gress is  only  after  the  flight  of  three-fourths  of  a  cen- 
tury, a  return  to  the  spirit  of  the  fathers.  Alas,  that 
an  onward  career  of  prosperity  like  ours,  should  have 
been  as  swiftly  and  surely  a  backward  career  in  the 
morals  of  this  great  debate.  "  Slavery  will  soon  die" 
they  thought  and  said ;  and  the  old  thirteen  States 
twined  their  arms  together  like  a  band  of  virgin  sisters. 
"  Slavery  will  soon  die"  and  they  framed  the  Constitu- 
tion to  meet  that  present  exigency,  and  to  ignore 
forever  its  memory.  "  Slavery  will  soon  die"  and  they 
made  the  importation  of  slaves  piracy  on  the  high 
seas.  Penitently  and  reverently  we  must  tread  our 
way  back  to  the  moral  eminences  where  they  stood, 
and  changing  that  syllable  of  expectation  to  one  of 
bold  and  determined  purpose,  say,  here  and  now,  after 
so  long  a  time,  " Slavery  MUST  die" 

There  will  come  a  day  of  reckoning  with  politicians. 
They  have  had  our  "honor"  in  their  keeping,  and 
betrayed  the  trust.  They  have  made  for  us  corrupt 
bargains,  and  repudiated  them  when  they  pleased. 
They  have  truly  represented  neither  North  nor  South. 
They  have  dishonored  the  South,  by  branding  her  with 
the  stigma  of  covenant  breaking.  They  have,  in  the 
very  stress  and  strain  of  the  high  debate,  spoken  soft 
and  timid  words  for  us,  when  their  tongues  should 
have  sounded  indignant  thunders.  We  must  deal  with 
politicians — we  must  create  a  new  race  of  them,  with 
the  northern  back-bone  bracing  them  to  an  upright 
and  fearless  manhood.  Thank  God  we  hear  at  last  a 


37 


true  tone,  where  at  least  one  fearless  champion  keeps 
the  whole  snarling  litter  at  bay. 

We  must  yield  no  more  territory  to  the  insatiable 
spirit  of  slavery  propagandism.  Not  another  particle 
of  freedom's  sacred  dust,  whatever,  I  know  what  I  say, 
it  is  a  broad  word,  and  has  a  terrible  significance — 
WHATEVER  be  the  alternative.  Into  that  imperilled 
West,  from  which  every  holy  guard  for  freedom  is  with- 
drawn, we  must  pour  the  living  streams  of  freemen. 
Let  it  flow,  our  best  New  England  blood  to  enrich  and 
consecrate  that  soil — let  them  go,  our  sons  and  daugh- 
ters carrying  thither  good  destinies  with  them.  The 
race  course  is  free  to  us — yonder  vesper  star  the  prize, 
let  us  see  if  Freedom  cannot  win  the  race. 

We  must  admit  on  no  pretence  another  slave  State. 
Are  not  all  old  pledges  dead  and  buried  I  We  do  put 
the  national  imprimatur  upon  the  system,  when  we  add 
one  of  those  malign  stars  to  the  glorious  constellation. 

We  must  stand  for  the  repeal  of  that  harsh  law  that 
goes  trampling  through  the  sacred  privacies  of  our 
homes,  unearthing  the  hidden,  trembling  fugitive,  and 
remanding  him  to  chains. 

Till  that  hour  strikes,  we  must  lend  that  barbarous 
decree  no  help  or  countenance.  If  there  be  penalties 
for  such  recusancy,  let  them  lay  their  heaviest  exac- 
tions on  our  heads.  Sooner  than  join  our  aid  to  the 
savage  hunt,  to  lay  the  flying  bondman  by  the  heels, 
let  the  avengers  of  such  law  drag  us  to  fetters.  Sweeter 
and  brighter  than  the  beauty  of  day  shall  be  the  gloom 
of  dungeons  in  such  a  martyrdom — richer  poverty 


38 


under  such  proscription  and  confiscation,  than  wealth 
and  station  the  price  of  dishonor. 

This  is  no  plea  for  armed  resistance.  Violence  and 
bloodshed  win  no  laurels  for  principle.  Oh,  my  fellow 
citizens,  let  us  remember  that  our  true  love  for  human- 
ity, our  noble  indignation  at  wrong — our  quenchless 
loyalty  to  right,  are  all  mixed  and  sullied  with  the 
stains  of  earthlier  passions,  when  we  join  to  them  the 
clenched  hand,  the  gnashing  teeth,  and  the  gleaming 
blades  of  popular  insurrection. 

This  may  we  do,  and  keep  both  clean  hands  and  an 
honest  conscience — withdraw,  on  every  hand,  each 
private  citizen — each  public  functionary — each  hum- 
blest servitor  of  justice,  from  the  processes  of  that 
legal  kidnapping,  and  let  them  thrive  as  they  may, 
without  us.  One  such  bright  example,  of  laying  down 
office  that  cannot  be  administered  with  honor,  is  worth 
for  the  cause  of  freedom  a  hundred  orations.  We 
shall  serve  our  cause  best,  keep  its  dignity  and  purity 
most  inviolate,  when  we  suffer  the  cruel  edict  to  take 
its  way,  with  such  allies  as  it  can  buy  and  yoke  to  its 
car,  amid  our  stern,  and  meaning  silence.  Let  our 
citizen  soldiery  take  to  themselves  salutary  caution.  If 
they  are  in  haste  at  such  crises,  when  the  authority  of 
our  own  State  Court,  the  provisions  of  our  own  State 
laws,  the  mandates  of  our  own  State  magistrates,  the 
rights  of  our  own  metropolitan  proprietorship — are 
nullified  by  the  Federal  power  arrayed  on  the  side  of 
inhumanity  and  unrighteousness, — if  they  are  in  haste 
to  flash  the  sheen  of  their  steel  and  the  glitter  of  their 


39 


uniform,  before  our  eyes  as  the  life-guards  of  oppress- 
ion, to  display  their  tactics  and  horsemanship  in  our 
public  squares,  as  a  terror  not  only  to  all  free  and 
generous  sentiments,  but  to  the  administration  of 
our  own  forms  of  justice,  if  they  are  to  be  associated 
with  the  pressure  of  the  Federal  Government  upon  us, 
overriding  and  overawing  the  course  of  law  in  the 
midst  of  us — rather  than  with  the  conservation  of 
these  sacred  rights  of  their  fellow  citizens :  they  must 
not  complain  if  they  come  to  be  looked  upon  hence- 
forth as  the  myrmidons  of  tyranny,  rather  than  the 
defenders  of  Liberty. 

And  if  in  taking  thus  our  unalterable  position,  we 
hear  again  on  every  Southern  wind,  the  alarm- cry  of 
u  DISUNION  " — let  the  blast  blow,  till  it  spend  itself.  It 
has  been  a  periodic  gale,  through  the  lifetime  of  two 
generations.  It  has  swept  with  it,  as  every  wind  does, 
the  light-lying  surface  dust,  and  withered  leaves,  and 
seemed  to  darken  the  hemisphere;  but  it  has  not 
prostrated  the  oaks  or  unseated  the  hills.  Let  the 
wind  blow — after  the  storm  cometh  the  calm.  And  if 
that  idle  terror  become  at  last  a  dread  reality — if  the 
price  of  the  Union  should  still  be  the  bleeding  sacri- 
fice of  humanity,  the  fettered  body  of  liberty — if  there 
lie  within  this  broader  nationality  no  redemption  for 
the  dishonored  name  of  our  free  Republican  Institu- 
tions,— if  our  sister  States  of  the  South  choose  rather 
to  cut  themselves  clear  from  the  strong  bands  of  the 
confederacy,  than  to  yield  their  unholy  demands  upon 
us,  to  fall  down  and  worship  their  great  Moloch, — if 


40 


they  think  it  practicable  and  easy  to  adjust  for  them- 
selves a  separate  nationality,  with  a  frontier  line  of 
States  touching  our  free  North,  to  shut  themselves  up 
trusting  to  such  forces  of  law,  police  and  arms  as  they 
can  muster,  with  that  magazine  of  destruction  in  the 
midst  of  them, — if  they  will  it  so,  EVEN  so  LET  IT  BE. 
This  is  n't  the  worst.  The  worst  is  to  drag  along  with 
us  forever  into  the  world's  brightening  future,  this  body 
of  death.  If  it  will  fall  off  from  us  instead  of  suffer- 
ing burial,  let  it  go. 

But  let  not  that  word  disunion  as  a  threat  or  a  hope, 
pass  our  lips.  It  belongs  to  a  Southern  vocabulary. 
For  ourselves  we  will  keep,  if  we  can,  our  cherishing 
love  for  the  whole  country — for  a  confederacy  of 
States,  united,  happy  and  free.  Oh,  we  do  not  love 
our  country  less,  that  we  are  unwilling  to  perpetuate 
her  shame ;  or  in  her  name  to  perpetuate  the  age  of 
iron.  We  are  none  the  less  to-day  large-hearted 
patriots,  that  we  would  burnish  that  blotted  line, 
which  spans  our  portals — "  the  great  and  free  Repub- 
lic"—so  that  the  far  off  nations  may  read  its  shining 
capitals.  We  turn  no  paricide's  blade  against  the 
breast  of  cherishing  motherland,  when  we  seek  with 
the  surgeon's  kindly  art,  to  cut  out  that  deadly  cancer 
that  is  eating  into  her  life.  We  are  not  sinning  against 
the  spirit  and  memories  of  this  day,  if,  while  celebrat- 
ing that  original  Declaration  of  Independence,  we 
frame  another — entire  national  freedom,  now  and  forever, 
from  the  despotism  of  Slavery,  and  pledge  to  it  as  the 
fathers  did — "  our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our  sacred 
honor." 


VI.  It  was  my  hope  to  have  found  room  for  a  final 
word,  in  reference  to  yet  one  more  struggle,  whose 
omens  are  beginning  to  thicken  upon  our  fate — and  to 
meet  which  we  need  to  rally  again  within  us,  the  spirit 
of  the  forefathers — their  severe  .simplicity,  their  early 
Roman  virtues.  I  mean  the  struggle  of  our  simple 
republican  tastes  and  habits  with  the  swelling  tides  of 
private  and  public  extravagance.  I  see  here,  <*iot 
merely  in  our  growing  wealth,  the  development  of  our 
boundless  resources  of  material  riches — of  productive 
industry  and  art — the  gathering  of  broader  harvests  on 
the  plains  of  husbandry,  and  the  return  of  richer 
argosies  from  the  ventures  of  commerce — but  in  the 
use  we  make  of  wealth,  in  its  prodigal  expenditure, 
in  the  pomp  and  show  of  private  life,  in  the  enervating 
spirit  of  luxury  and  effeminacy,  stealing  in  upon  us, 
with  footfall  as  silent  and  as  blighting  as  the  plague ; 
a  darker  cloud  low-lying  on  our  country's  horizon,  with 
live  lightnings  sleeping  in  it,  than  even  that  whose 
colossal  shadows  are  stretching  from  our  southern  sky 
past  the  zenith.  This  is  a  peril  I  cannot  signalize 
to-day.  And  yet  let  us  be  warned.  So  ran  the  elder 
Republics  their  swift,  downward  race.  So  may  we,  if 
other  perils  spare  us,  sink  from  the  very  excess  of 
prosperity  into  a  splendid  and  gilded  decay. 

It  is  manifest,  then,  that  we  are  pressing  forward 
toward  eventful  and  final  issues.  "  The  times  that 
tried  men's  souls"  are  not  merely  historic  but  present. 
The  gravest  questions  of  the  entire  problem  of  Amer- 
ican Destiny  wait  their  solution,  we  believe,  of  the  men 


of  this  generation.  The  question  whether  this  great 
experiment  shall  fail — whether  this  star  on  whose 
trembling  ray  hangs  the  world's  last  hope  for  personal, 
political  and  religious  freedom,  shall  go  down — 
whether  our  career,  so  omened  and  so  watched,  shall 
prove  itself  only  a  stride  back  into  the  darkness  of 
kingcraft  and  priestcraft — whether  this  banner,  bap- 
tised in  blood,  with  man's  liberty  and  God's  truth  by 
those  who  begat  us,  shall  lead  the  mad  career  of  a 
conquest,  stimulated  by  no  ambition — throbbing  to  no 
lust  of  power,  but  shackled  to  the  car  of  slavery,  across 
the  Mexican  Gulf  and  the  Caribbean  Sea,  and  over  the 
Isthmus  and  beyond  the  Equator — whether  we  have 
enough  of  patriotism,  conscience  and  piety  to  enthrone 
above  all  national  legislation  God's  law,  as  highest  and 
holiest — whether  we  have  moral  heroism  enough  to 
fight  the  hydra-headed  monster  of  oppression,  and  burn 
the  life  out  of  its  multiplying  crests — whether  we  have 
enough  of  the  stern  old  virtue  of  the  Puritan  stock, 
ancestral  in  our  lineage — to  hold  ourselves  back  and 
our  country  back,  from  the  luxury  and  profligacy  of 
great  and  sudden  riches — to  these  determinate  ques- 
tions let  us  stand  up  in  solemn  and  prayerful  earnest — 
trustees  for  our  own  and  after- times,  of  such  measure- 
less interests,  and  GOD  PROSPER  THE  RIGHT  ! 


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